The screen door slapped shut behind them. Zoey turned to Mama D. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, we had a lovely time.” Mama D reached up, fiddled with the cross necklace dangling from a silver chain around her neck. “Went shopping and to the Burger Barn for dinner.”
“Not Magnolia Blossom? Wow.” Zoey grinned. Maybe she’d misread the tension earlier. She was full of her own right now, it wouldn’t be unlikely for her to?—
“There was just the one incident.” Mama D’s hot pink lips curled downward.
So she hadn’t misread. “What happened?”
Mama D cast a quick look over her shoulder at the lights glowing inside the house. “She ran out of money pretty quick, as you can see from all the bags. She bought mostly clothes, though I think she found some cheap jewelry too. A ring, was it? Or earrings…”
“You’re stalling.”
“I am.” Mama D wrung her hands. “I hate to get her in trouble, because she put it back. But I thought you should know.”
“Put what back?” Then the implication registered. Her stomach clenched. “Wait. Did she steal something?”
Mama D nodded, so slight her head barely moved. Her gray brow furrowed. “A floor model cell phone.”
“A cell phone?” Oh, Amelia. Zoey briefly closed her eyes, sighed. Linc was going to hate this. After all the progress they’d been making…
“She put it back, like I said.” Mama zipped the cross faster along the chain. “I saw it immediately in her purse, thank heavens. She grumbled a little about no one using it, and it going to waste—but put it back without further issue.”
Was that supposed to be comforting? That she didn’t fight Mama D in the middle of a store?
Zoey pressed her fingers against her temples. “How do we handle this? We completely skipped potty training and the ‘don’t touch the hot stove’ lessons most parents get to teach first.” She ran her hands down her cheeks, her chest heating. “Now we have to go straight to the ‘stealing is wrong’ lessons?”
Mama D murmured in sympathy. “I know it’s a lot, hon. Parenting isn’t for the faint of heart. But you’ll get it.” She hesitated. “That’s actually why I told you first—because you’ll know the right way to tell Linc. Maybe you can even talk to Amelia before he has to know.”
There it was—Linc’s bad-boy reputation, biting him. Everyone assumed he’d have a temper, go off on Amelia just because he was a grumpy kind of guy. Zoey knew better.
But while she didn’t think he’d yell at Amelia, itwasentirely possible he’d say the wrong thing right out of the gate. He needed time to process this information before he addressed it.
Zoey sighed. “I’ll talk to her. Break the ice.”
“Good.” Mama D nodded briskly. “We had a wonderful time outside of that. She warmed up to me after a little while.” She chuckled. “I think my springing for ice cream helped.”
“Thanks for taking her out.” Zoey hugged her, and for a moment, she couldn’t help but wonder if her own mom would have been this involved. She couldn’t even tell her she was married yet because of the lack of cell service where they were serving.
But this wasn’t about Zoey. It was about Amelia.
She pulled back. “Guess I better go figure this out.”
Mama D slid back inside her car, lifted one hand in a wave. “I have no doubt you will, dear.”
Zoey stared toward the lit house and blew out a breath. That made one of them.
* * *
Linc had gone to bed roughly half an hour ago, but once again, couldn’t sleep. Too many thoughts jumping through his mind, like errant sheep. Or what had Zoey said—rabid squirrels?
Would the tours be enough to keep Boiling Bayou in the black before next crawfish season? What else could he do until spring to keep things going?
Why wouldn’t Amelia tell him about her night? Was that a normal teenager thing or a she-didn’t-want-to-talk-to-him-specifically thing?
Would Kirsten come back? Should he give Ms. Bridges the green light for court?
And the one thought that kept circling, the most rabid of them all. The only one not in question form.
